Elizabeth Broadbent

Director AI Psychology Research in Animate Technologies

Elizabeth Broadbent is a Professor of Health Psychology at the University of Auckland, and a fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. She initially trained as an electrical and electronic engineer at Canterbury University to pursue her interest in robotics. After becoming interested in the psychological aspects of robotics and in psychoneuroimmunology, she retrained in health psychology. Elizabeth was a visiting academic at the school of psychology at Harvard University and in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, USA. She obtained a Fulbright award to study companion robots. Her research interests include the use of companion robots and virtual humans in health contexts. She is particularly interested in the emotional connections we form with robots and virtual agents, and how we can build emotional intelligence and empathy skills into technology, to improve health outcomes. She has over 200 scientific publications. Elizabeth is the Director of AI Psychology Research at Soul Machines.